Promise of No Problems
by YourRhineStoneEyes
Summary: The day that Strex corp. took over the local radio station in Night Vale Cecil noticed things in his life going a way he didn't want them to go, but Strex may have brought him a solution to his problems.
1. Chapter 1

The day after the Strex Corp. take over he had gone into work to find the orange prescription pill bottle setting on the desk amongst the usual equipment, underneath the pill bottle sat a piece of yellow paper with orange print.

'DO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS? DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY? TAKE TWO A DAY AND WATCH ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS BE RESOLVED. NOTHING LEFT BUT HAPPINESS. BELIEVE IN A SMILING GOD. STREX CORP.'

When he had seen the note, the bottle filled almost to the brim with circular yellow pills he had been disgusted and a bit afraid. They were giving him drugs, they wanted him to take this and God knows what would happen to him physically or mentally. He didn't trust Strex, he knew enough about them to be scared of them and weary of them. Nothing could make him take their drugs, especially with such an odd message.

'problems and happiness'

Why did they think he wasn't happy, that he had problems that he would resort to their pills to resolve?

That night after work he sent yet another text to Carlos, asking him where he was; he had promised to pick Cecil up from work and they would go out for dinner. He sat out in the empty parking lot and waited, nearly two hours later he sent another message, and then finally just called.

"Hello?" A tired and mildly annoyed voice asked on the other end of the line.

"Where are you?"

"Oh hey Cecil, I'm at work."

He let out a heavy sigh, he ran his fingers back through his messy brown hair giving it a slight frustrated tug.

"You were supposed to pick me up from work, we had a date. Remember?"

A pause, he heard the clicking sound of fingers on a keyboard.

"Carlos"

"Huh oh right, I'm sorry Cec just...I really need to get this done tonight, you have a way home...Right?"

"Yeah of course"

He looked around the empty lot and reminded himself he could walk back home, it'd only take half an hour granted that nothing attacked him.

"Okay, I'm sorry about canceling like that...Maybe some other time, yeah?"

"Yeah, right...I'll talk to you later then."

"Great, bye Cecil"

He ended the call, shoved his phone back into his jeans pocket, and began to head towards the car park exit. He tried to remember the last time they had even gone out or the last time that Carlos even had the time to remember that Cecil even existed. At first things had been marvelous, every little fantasy he had filled his own mind with; Carlos had taken him out to dinner, watched badly made horror and scifi films with him, and even given him a watch on their one month anniversary...Just out of nowhere things sort of went, he didn't want to say bad, but things just weren't as great. It was almost like back before they had started dating, back when he just longed for the other man while Carlos ignored his existence to the point that Cecil had begun questioning that possibly Carlos hated him. Now they were dating, but minus much of the dating; at first it had been alright, sometimes people didn't call and that was okay. Sometimes people forgot dates or to pick you up or meet you somewhere and that was okay too, but it had gotten so frustrating. So then he pestered him, a lot; to the point that it felt like too much work and almost like a chore for Carlos to cook for him, to pay attention to him. So now he just had gone back to hoping Carlos would remember their dates, remember him. He was getting tired of it. Especially after the day Strex had taken over, he had expected Carlos to be there for him, but it took until one in the morning to even get the other man on the phone. He had needed him, Josie was still missing, a dangerous corporation had bought out his safe haven, and he was reasonably scared by all of this. Yet Carlos didn't...He cared, but he just seemed so wrapped up in the lab and his experiments and the funding grant from California that...He didn't have enough time to really notice the yellow helicopters or how tense and scared Cecil had gotten when two Strex employees dressed in black suits had come into the station and held guns to his head ready to kill him if he didn't promote them.

That had hurt him, he'd been scared, and he'd needed his boyfriend there for him. He'd needed somebody, because Dana was possibly dead and Josie too. Yet he had gone home alone, cried himself to sleep and talked himself into going in the next day.

Now here he was walking through the darkened and dangerous streets of Night Vale alone.


	2. Chapter 2

The tapes sat broken and mutilated on the desk before him, his face was in his hands, because if he lifted his head or attempted any movement he would get dizzy and most likely fall to the floor. Those tapes had to all be lies, he didn't remember making them. He didn't remember having a brother, he had no brother...he had been an only child. His mother had died only a few years ago, hadn't she? He'd had two loving grandparents, had taken part in school plays even though it ended with other kids bullying him, he had had a pet hamster, then later on a dog, and he'd...He'd graduated high school and gone on to college where he studied physics and Chinese and Latin and...Those tapes were lies, weren't they?

He could not get the sound of his teenage self being choked out of his mind. He could hear his heart pounding, he had felt it beneath his hand earlier and now he could most definitely hear it. He could hear it over the sounds of his labored breathing. He was alive, wasn't he?

The thing...The thing in the mirror, the large figure made of nothing but blackness and impossibly long limbs. The thing with no eyes but stared into his very soul.

Why had his family left him?

His mother knew, she knew about the flickering figure, she knew about the town prophecy, and that he would die. Why had she left him, why had she abandoned him? She had mourned him. He hadn't known about the Jewish tradition back then, but now as an adult he'd learned a bit about it. She had avoided him for three days, she had gathered his brother up, and left him in that house. Alone with that...With that monster, how could she? He thought she had loved him, who does that?

Where was she?

Who was his brother? Was his brother alive, why did his brother have hollow eyes...Oh God were his eyes hollow too?

The sound of his phone ringing shook him out of his panicking train of thought. He answered it, hand shaky, and normally deep voice cracking.

"Cecil, are you okay?"

"Did you hear my show?"

"No, I'm sorry, but I've just been really busy lately with this assignment. Did something important happen?"

Cecil let out a shaky breath, he leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

"No, no nothing important."

"Oh well that's good I suppose, um I was calling to tell you that I don't think I can come by tonight, is that okay?"

"Sure, it's fine"

There was a pause, "Cecil are you sure that you're okay?"

He wanted to say he was the furthest thing from fine, but did it matter? Carlos wouldn't understand and honestly he didn't understand himself, partially he was scared how the other man would respond to what Cecil had just found out.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just fine"

"If there's something wrong...You know you can tell me, right?"

"Yeah I know"

"I love you Cecil"

"I love you too"

He wanted him there with him, he missed when they relied on each other. Now it seemed like Carlos wasn't there unless he forced him to be there. If Cecil bugged him or yelled at him enough then he could get his boyfriend to spend time with him, but what was the point if the only way you could get the person you loved to be around you more than twice a week if you're lucky is by yelling at each other?

He missed when they had started dating and even back before then, but this was how things were. It was fine or at least he wanted them to be. Just like he told himself that now that the cassettes were broken they no longer existed, those memories no longer existed...Not like he remembered them anyway, a part of him tried to remember, but it made him feel ill when he tried. He knew that he could talk to Carlos, but he didn't want to bother him while he was working, and usually when the scientist was buried deep in one of his projects he had trouble paying attention to anything Cecil would try to tell him. It was better to just wait, better yet to put this whole cassette tape business on the back burner of his brain. Done, forgotten.

He pushed the broken bits of plastic and ripped apart ribbons into the trash. He caught a glimpse of the pill bottle that sat atop its off putting note. He read its words. He wasn't all that happy, right now he was scared, confused, and lonely. Maybe the pills were safe, they could just be your run of the mill drugs that make you loopy or tired. That wouldn't be too bad, it'd be safer than his original plan of going to his apartment and drinking himself to sleep.

He pocketed the pill bottle then left the station to his own home. He undressed and went back to his bedroom, he sat down on his bed and read over the label on the bottle. None of it seemed significant, Hell some of it wasn't even in English. One, he would just take one. One pill couldn't hurt.


End file.
